Overcrowding in Prison

According to Champion (2006) “Prison, institution designed to securely house people who have been convicted of crimes”. If a person committed a crime and is punishable by law they will undergo a process and if find guilty they will put to prison. Usually it takes 1 year but if serious even lifetime sentence.

The person committed mistake since the ancient up to the present are increasing daily. If you are to watch news you can hear and see accidents of rapes, holdups, robbery and other offenses. What do you think will happen?This will result in increase in prisoners if the areas are small overcrowding will happen. Let me point out to you how these overcrowding started and what solution that the government in the past tried to overcome these and what usually the reasons for overcrowding and at recent the possible solution to theses problem. History of Overcrowding This was started in the late July 6, 1864 written by (Miller et al, 2006): “400 Confederate prisoners of war marched from Erie Station to the prison camp, becoming the first of 12,123 prisoners held in Elmira.

It was said to have been the worst prison camp in the North”. The over crowding resulted to shortage of food supply and medicine that different diseases spread throughout the prisoners. If the shortage of the basic needs in prisons are encountered I can then figure out how the prisoners suffers when it comes to foods, maybe some cannot take it and this would results to starvation that later on losses their life. When it comes to lacks of medicines the diseases spreads cannot be prevented.

Miller et al stresses that “Disease, overcrowding, and natural disaster took its toll.Of the 12,123 prisoners assigned to the camp, 2,963 died in all. ” That 24. 44% population of the prisoners died because of crowding that some diseases strike in the prison of Elmira camp. Schlosser, Eric (1998) in his Atlantic Monthly writes “Up until 1970s in the US about 110 prison inmates for every 100,000 people; 1990s - 445 per 100,000; among adult men it is about 1,100 per 100,000”.

He further added, “In 1977 the inmate population of California was 19,600. Today it is 159,000”. (pp. 51-77)Solutions in the Past The prisoners in Elmira were release at the “end of war they give them passes enough to go home”.

(Miller et al, 2006). “During the past two decades roughly a thousand new prisons and jails have been built in the United States” ( pp. 51-77). Many corrections officials and researchers agree it is not realistic to expect to solve overcrowding problems solely through the construction of more and newer facilities.

Instead an “alternatives to incarceration, such as community supervision and intermediate sanctions, ranging from fines to parole release was created. ” (Rosenfeld & Kempf, 1991, p. 93).Furthermore, the Correctional Service of Canada has established five corporate objectives for 1996-97 to 1998-99.

The first objective addresses prison overcrowding; CSC’s objective is to continue effective population management (Correctional Service of Canada, 1996, p. 6). The solution made in the past was not effective because we can see until now the overcrowding in prisons not only in the United States but in some parts of the world. It is also best to know why the overcrowding continues to increases despite the fact that the government are trying to solve this.

In the next paragraph the possible reasons are explain by different researchers. Reasons of Overcrowding Many had assumed jail and prison overcrowding resulted from rising crime rates and general population growth. However, research data indicated that a major factor in overcrowding, especially in jails, was a rise in the arrest rate for such crimes as impaired driving, domestic violence and drugs (Shelden & Brown, 1991, p. 347).

Eric Kibuka the Director of UNIFRI reveals “A major reason for overcrowding in prisons is the excess recourse to imprisonment.He further added that in many countries, the public is satisfied with and supportive of the punitive degrading practices whereby suspects that are arrested and taken to the police are immediately detained in police custody (cells) and later in prison, denying them any release either on police bond or bail. Another writers James Sterngold and Mark Martin, Chronicle Staff s (Sunday, July 3, 2005 ) writes that “a major cause of overcrowding is a parole system that sends far more released inmates back to prison than other states.Decisions by corrections officials and politicians to de-emphasize rehabilitation programs lengthen parole periods and send violators back to prison instead of giving them treatment have produced a return rate of about 60 percent, the nations highest”. In Illinois Bill Kemp (1990) writes in his research the reasons for the rapid growth in Illinois' inmate population are simple. First.

Gov. James R. Thompson was elected in 1977 on a law-and-order mandate. In defending the current overcrowding crisis, Thompson said in his January State of the State message: '"Get tough on crime,' the people said, and we did.We created Class X sentences mandating prison terms for the most serious criminals.

We revamped the criminal sexual assault laws. We did what we were supposed to do. We listened to the people who entrusted us with public office and took decisive action. " Second, the series of so-called "Drug Wars" during the last 10 years have filled state prisons across the nation with drug offenders.

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, in fiscal year 1984, only 7 percent of all inmates were admitted on a drug conviction.By fiscal year 1992, the department estimates that that number will be 33 percent. Not only are there more drug offenders in prison, but they are also staying longer. Between 1986 and 1990, the average time served by drug offenders increased 50 percent.

(Kemp, 1990). The enforcers follow the order of the Government to implement the strict compliance of crime and the war against drugs resulted to increases in law offenders. This is also true in other countries. If these will continue overcrowding would not be prevented, the government must do something to prevent these.In the next paragraph the possible solutions to overcrowding would be presented. Possible Solutions The increase in crimes would lead to increase in prisoners and the increase of prisoners resulted in overcrowding.

The overcrowding of inmates is in human and attention should be given to solve this issues. Katie Morrel (2002) Capital News Service demonstrated in Monroe County Community, because of overcrowding in prisons Monroe County Community Corrections Advisory Board is working hard to keep its citizens out of prison by providing community corrections programs.A day-report program is one of the methods used: an offender convicted of a substance abuse is required to report to the program twice a day for drug testing. Others include employment and training programs; pretrial services, including counseling for offenders; relapse prevention programs; and education programs.

The program created by Monroe County is one of the effective strategies and that can be followed by other countries as an example. In facts the populations of prisoners in Monroe decreases by “10 percent” (Morrel, 2002).Experts say that “spending money on treating or training parole violators is more effective than sending them back to prison for typical stays of 90 to 120 days”. (Sterngold and Martin2005). I believe this program is more effective because once they are train like in the livelihood programs their attention would be direct into earning and it is the legal way of having a job than back to their old activities which unlawful. Sterngold and Martin (2005) added “among parolees who met drug treatment goals at intensive residential centers, only 15.

percent returned to prison within a year of being released, compared with more than 40 percent for all offenders, said Sheldon Zhang, a professor of sociology at Cal State San Marcos. ”The rehabilitation treatment of the offenders should be given attention if the government wanted to decrease the overcrowding offenders in prison. Therefore I can say that the increase in crime rates and other unlawful activities makes the overcrowding in most of the countries it can traced even before the modern world.Worse scenario can be seen today.

There are possible solutions they applied but still the over increasing are still be observed. The different researchers point out the different reasons why overcrowded are still seen. The government in response with the different Correction Officials cited some solutions and the solutions shows positive result that decreases the law offenders. The continue active participation of the government in solving these problems would lessen in the overcrowding in the future come.